Local app developer On the Spot gears up to release Top Pix and Top Bikini

According to certain scientific estimates, there are currently four katrillion applications and websites devoted to voting on pictures out there in the world, but if an app developer can think a a new riff on that concept, there's always room for a couple more -- particularly if they involve winning things and/or bikinis. That's pretty much exactly what Avon-based programmer On the Spot Development did with Top Pix and Top Bikini, two apps that'll launch at approximately 5 p.m. today.

Actually, Top Pix got approval from Apple and launched Wednesday, but "We took it down immediately, because we wanted to launch on Friday," says company founder Dave Forenza. "But we actually had about twenty downloads just in the short time it was up. So it seems like there's a lot of interest in it."

Both apps work on a similar platform: You upload a photo of yourself, which makes it available for people to "favorite," or vote on. "If someone favorites your photo, then you get a vote; most votes at the end of every week will get a prize -- and we're actually going to be giving away some pretty good prizes, iPads and stuff like that," Forenza says. "But it's a pretty cool concept; it's all tallied up by back-end servers that refresh each time you hit the button, so once you favorite something, it shows up immediately."

In Top Pix, your photo can be you doing whatever -- making the tiger-eyes, for example. In Top Bikini, it's the same, except you're in a bikini. Well, or a swimsuit of any kind, really. Using the same tallying method, Top Bikini picks two winning swimsuit photos each month over the course of twelve months -- then, at the end of the year, On the Spot will invite the winners out to Las Vegas (possibly at Hooters, although Forenza isn't entirely sure about that yet) for a swimsuit contest, narrowing the field of contestants down to twelve, all of whom will get a month in the Top Bikini swimsuit calendar.

That one's been a little tougher to get though, thanks in part to Apple's notoriously Victorian sensibilities as far as what apps it'll put in its store -- as of yesterday afternoon, in fact, Forenza was "Still waiting on approval. Hopefully it'll launch tomorrow. We're in the final stages." Still, he's pretty confident it'll go through.

"We have guidelines in place, and we'll be watching everything on the server side. We also have a flag button to comfort Apple a little bit, so people can flag what they think is appropriate, which immediately takes it down and then we get a message sent to us so we can evaluate it. But we don't want these kind of racy shots, down on all fours or kama sutra stuff or whatever. We're trying to keep it classy."

Look for Top Pix and Top Bikini to appear in the Apple store late this afternoon, and stay tuned for both the be available for Android in the next couple of months -- also stay tuned for Top Dog, which is basically the same thing except with pictures of your dog, and more to come in May or June.